School plans parent ‘Pow Wow’

Friday

Sep 6, 2013 at 2:10 PM

Luke Smucker

The Pontiac Township High School Parent Pow Wow marks the latest incarnation of what began on Nov. 5, 2012, as the Community Café — an opportunity for Superintendent Jon Kilgore and Principal Eric Bohm to openly discuss current steps the high school is taking to improve or increase engagement of parents and community members in a public forum. The PTHS School Community Council, which is made up of parents, administrators, board members and faculty, has been in charge of planning these events from the beginning and their continued discussion has directed the event from its inception at the Pontiac Family Kitchen to the Dr. Ronald J. Yates Memorial Library at the high school, where it was held during the second event on Jan. 25 and where it will be held again on Sept. 11, at 6 p.m.“For this event, we have built around the concept of the community café,” said Kilgore. “We have added a hands-on session for net books and a session specific to parents and their children.” Many of these changes came following a community council trip to LeRoy to see how LeRoy Community Unit School District conducts its parent information meetings. Kilgore said while it’s not a direct copy of LeRoy’s event, what they saw provided a model of what PTHS wants for this and future events.“This is the future of the community café events,” said Kilgore. “If we get positive feedback, we may have new topics and another event in the spring.”The event will be split into three sessions. There will be a session on understanding test scores, a session on making the most of Skyward and the netbooks and a session specifically for questions and answers. If attendance is great, the sessions will repeat in order to provide every parent with the chance to attend each session. If there is a smaller turnout, each session will be run only once during the 6 to 7:45 p.m. time period.One new addition to this year’s event is the request that parents RSVP for the event. While it is not required, Kilgore and Bohm believe it will add to the relevancy of the event because parents will be able to look at and reflect on their student’s current test scores.“I am really excited to talk about the test scores,” said Bohm, who will be at the session. “When we look at Explore test scores, attached to the results is a trajectory of where the student could be their junior year if they continue to work at the same level. Maybe there are some interventions we could have here at the school to help raise that. I think it’s important — as a parent myself — to know where my son is at academically. It’s important to me to work with the school to help raise my awareness of the score.”Bohm says the need for this session stems from a common occurrence of parents who believe their child will be a shoe-in for a specific college, only to find out the student’s academic credential s don’t match up to the college’s expectations. “If we have those conversations early on, we can advise those parents on where they can start and how they can work their way out so that their student isn’t defined by the trajectory projected by the Explore test,” said Bohm.This is also the first year that all students at PTHS have netbooks. The seniors this year were the initial freshmen class to receive netbooks and now are the first senior class with them. This means instructors who teach classes taken only by seniors are now learning ways to incorporate technology into their curriculum.“Part of the professional development we have with the netbook one-to-one initiative is keeping our staff and parents on top of the technological possibilities that are out there,” said Bohm. “Often, the students are already aware of the various ways that smartphones, social media and the Internet can keep them connected to their interests. They have an interest in using that technology, so it’s up to us to make sure we keep on top of the ways it can be used to enhance their current understanding, while at the same time adding to their education in various subjects.”In addition to discussing how parents can make the most of Skyward at home and answering any netbook related questions, there will also be a portion on the future plans for the netbooks. One of the things they are looking at for the future is Internet access anywhere at anytime via satellite or similar network. “We want students to be able to go on the Internet outside of the classroom at any time. Similar to the satellite technology used to keep smartphones online at all times, we hope to have that setup with the netbooks. The netbooks we have right now aren’t capable of doing that because they lack a specific part, but that’s something we are looking at because we have a population of students who go home and don’t have the Internet. This would allow them to have that access.”In order to provide a focus for the question and answer session portion of the event, Kilgore wants to give a little bit of information on the county school facility tax. He wants to openly discuss with parents when the tax dollars will be coming in, how that money could be spent and also some of the netbook one-to-one initiatives.“What we want to do with this is provide an opportunity to present to the parents,” said Bohm. “We want parents to come in and be educated about the topics that interest them. If they don’t have two hours to spare, we are offering the ability for them to come in and spend the time they feel is necessary to understand what is going on and I hope we will meet their needs.”

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